Rhinebeck 2010

It was, as always, wonderful.  I love Rhinebeck.  Its like Christmas for fiber people – time to celebrate all things fibery, see old friends and of course, do a little shopping.  This year’s festival was a special treat – Paula and Suzanne were nutty enough to get up well before the crack of dawn with me and make the early morning drive out.  We spent a fabulous day together.

As is tradition, the day started with breakfast at Pete’s Famous in Rhinebeck.  This year, I was joined by not just Paula and Suzanne but Jacie, Jenni, Tracy, Emilee and Aaron.  The tradition may be the same, but the company gets better every year.

Tummies full, we set off for the festival, arriving just before the gates opened.  There was a line of people waiting to enter – eek.  Getting there early really is the way to go – by lunchtime, it was packed.  Going early means that you can actually browse the booths without having to elbow your way through the crowd.  Paula, Suzanne and I hit up Little Barn early, scoring some great deals – for me, Ultra Fine Merino and cashmere/silk blend rovings.  Both are white and destined for the dye pot at some point.  From there, we poked and wandered.  We got to all of the vendors before it got packed, managed to make a second round to some of our favorites, enjoyed lunch, and saw the competition entries.  Nice to see that my friends brought home some ribbons!   I saw lots of friends, old and new.  I love that Rhinebeck is an opportunity to see people that I sometimes only run into once a year.  Unfortunately, camensia set in – the only picture I got was this one, at Paula’s urging: For future use in an online dating profile, of course.  Betcha I’d score me some quality man from that one!

For the most part, I was well behaved, shopping-wise.  I did have a little fall down in the Bosworth booth, coming home with this: A new Maxi spindle in Zebrawood.  She weighs 48 grams – much lighter than my other 2 Maxis.  She spins like a dream.  I should have known that I wouldn’t leave their booth empty handed.  It had been 2 years since my last one.  This makes number 12.  I do love them.  When I got home, I immediately pulled some Polwarth roving out of the stash and started spinning up a nice, lofty thick and thin singles.  This spindle is perfect for it.  Love!

I made 2 other small purchases: 4 ounces of gorgeous silk and merino roving from Gale’s Art (think she was a new vendor this year) and sweet little buttons from Jennie the Potter, for a baby sweater I’m making for a colleague.

A few other things definitely called to me – given the one, my stash is huge and two, both Stitches and the Fiber Festival of New England are coming up in the next 3 weeks, I held back.  There’s only so much time to knit and spin it all up…

We headed home mid afternoon after a nice, relaxed day at the festival.  The weather was cool and beautiful, but windy – truly a fall day.  The company was great.  I do love making a day trip of it.  I’m already looking forward to next year